is it possible to display plots in an emacs buffer?

[Rodney Sparapani]

>I've taken this sentence from a recent thread:
>_The usual answer to a question of the form "is it possible to do ....?"
>is "yes, here is how"_
>
>Lets try:
>is it possible to display the plots R makes inside an emacs buffer?
>
>I hope to get the usual answer... ;-)
>
>I'll explain the idea a bit more. When I am working in emacs and make a 
>plot, a new X11 window opens, I see the plot and to get back to emacs I 
>have to close or minimize the X11, I loose quite a lot of time doing 
>this every day. Wouldn't it be great if the plots could be displayed 
>directly inside an emacs buffer?
>
>I guess opening an X11 device inside an emacs buffer is not possible (am 
>I right?) but other interim solutions would also be great.
>For example:
>  - I can open an image (called say "Rplots.png" or other appropiatte 
>format, maybe eps?) in an emacs buffer.
>  - Every time I would make a plot in the ESS proccess the output is 
>written to this file instead of the default X11 and an automatic call to 
>revert-buffer is done in the emacs buffer displaying the image.
>  Is it to possible to do this? Has anybody already implemented it?
>Best regards,
>Angel
>
>

Angel:

That's very similar to the way the ESS[SAS] feature used to work.  However, in 
it's current state it would not do what you want for ESS[R].  So, take the code 
below and execute it in the scratch buffer.  Then, when you have created a .gif 
or .jpg, executing ess-sas-graph-view should bring up the image in it's own 
buffer (if you have setup ESS[SAS], then you can just press F12).  You can find 
out more by reading the info of ESS[SAS].

(defun ess-sas-graph-view ()
  "Open a GSASFILE for viewing."
  (interactive)
  (ess-sas-file-path)
;  (ess-sas-goto-log 'no-error-check)

  (save-excursion (let ((ess-tmp-sas-graph nil)
        (ess-tmp-sas-glyph nil)
        (ess-tmp-sas-graph-regexp 
	    (concat "['\"]\\(.*" ess-sas-graph-suffix-regexp "\\)['\"]")))

    (save-match-data 
       (search-backward-regexp "[ \t=]" nil t)

       (save-excursion 
	    (setq ess-tmp-sas-graph (ess-search-except 
ess-tmp-sas-graph-regexp)))

        (if (not ess-tmp-sas-graph) 
	    (setq ess-tmp-sas-graph (ess-search-except ess-tmp-sas-graph-regexp 
nil t)))

	(setq ess-tmp-sas-graph (read-string "GSASFILE: " 
	    (or ess-tmp-sas-graph ess-sas-file-path)))
;	    (or ess-tmp-sas-graph (file-name-nondirectory ess-sas-file-path))))

	  (if (fboundp 'ess-xemacs-insert-glyph) (progn
	      (if (string-match "[.][gG][iI][fF]" ess-tmp-sas-graph)
		 (setq ess-tmp-sas-glyph 'gif)
	      ;;else
	      (if (string-match "[.][jJ][pP][eE]?[gG]" ess-tmp-sas-graph)
		 (setq ess-tmp-sas-glyph 'jpeg)))))

	  (if ess-tmp-sas-glyph (progn
		(switch-to-buffer (file-name-nondirectory ess-tmp-sas-graph))
		(ess-xemacs-insert-glyph 
		    (make-glyph (vector ess-tmp-sas-glyph :file 
ess-tmp-sas-graph)))
	     )
	  ;;else
	  (if (and (boundp 'auto-image-file-mode) auto-image-file-mode
	      (string-match "[.][jJ][pP][eE]?[gG]" ess-tmp-sas-graph))
	      (find-file ess-tmp-sas-graph)
          ;;else
         
            (ess-sas-goto-shell t)

            (insert ess-sas-submit-pre-command " " ess-sas-image-viewer " " 
	      ess-tmp-sas-graph 
	      (if (equal ess-sas-submit-method 'sh) " &"))
            (comint-send-input))
)))))

Rodney Sparapani              Medical College of Wisconsin
Sr. Biostatistician           Patient Care & Outcomes Research
rsparapa at mcw.edu              http://www.mcw.edu/pcor
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